Mike wrote:
>I can confirm that this attitude still exists, and has probably gotten
even more prevalent. Last week, I was stopped on T2, at the very edge
of the trail, and a young skier, who could barely control his skis,
landed a jump about 1 foot from me, before falling and sliding into
the woods.
If you go, be very careful, and try to have eyes in the back of your
head. I'm not sure this is a Sunday River only attitude, I seem to
see more of it everywhere I go.
<
Although it's easy to make SR the scapegoat and despite my earlier post, I
don't feel it to be so much an SR attitude as a prevalent attitude at ski
areas where a large number of the guests come from a major metro area. I
have two pretty obvious opinions on this:
1) Folks who live in a metro area, including densely populated suburbs, are
very used to being in very close proximity to their fellow city workers and
dwellers. Hence they are much more comfortable in dealing with reduced
personal space.
2) People who have been jonesing for skiing for the past 7 months, charged
up with extreme this and extreme that ("Extreme golf"??!!?? I mean, really,
com'on!) are way eager to "rip it up, duuuuude!". Certainly the younger and
more testosterone laden, the more intense the attitude. They only have eyes
and tunnel vision for their line and their tricks, fueled by a barrage of
photos and movies of spinny flippy moves that are better suited for the
terrain park than an open trail. Couple this with the belief that skiing is
a safe sport. (How can it be safe and extreme simultaneously? Besides, us
old farts have this sense of self preservation that kicks in at some point,
usually after we find we can be injured and break!)
-Marc
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